Avian Flu Outbreak Among Chickens – antibiotic abuses and resistance

US authorities are very heavy-handed when it comes to “protecting” you from unadulterated organic foods, such as raw milk and artisan cheeses, ostensibly because such foods have not been processed to the point that any and all microbes have been eradicated.

Sterile equates to “safe,” is the general idea, yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The focus on eradicating microbes from our food supply and our immediate environment, including our bodies, has led to dramatic changes in the microbiome of Americans, and the health ramifications of this runs the gamut from obesity to an increased risk for most chronic diseases.

Scientists have now realized that we need microbes to stay healthy, slim, and mentally well-adjusted. And animals need them too, in order to stay healthy, and therein lies the problem.

CAFOs are notorious for routinely administering antibiotics (which indiscriminately kill both beneficial and pathogenic bacteria) to the animals in order to keep them well enough for slaughter. Antibiotics also make the animals grow fatter, faster, which is another reason for their use.

Regardless of the justification, the end result is the same. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics in agriculture has led to the rise of antibiotic resistance that now claims the lives of 23,000 Americans each year.

It also reduces the animals’ overall immune function and health, which ultimately equates to an inferior food product, compared to eating a truly healthy, organically raised specimen.

Despite the fact that CAFOs are responsible for virtually all foodborne outbreaks, the US government keeps protecting this model of food production.

As reported by Oregon Live,7 several hundred people have been struck with severe food poisoning over the course of a decade by chicken originating from Foster Farms.

“State officials pushed federal regulators to act, but salmonella-tainted chicken flowed into grocery stores, first in the Northwest, then across the country. Oregon investigators became so familiar with the culprit they gave it a name: the Foster Farms strain,” the article states, noting that the USDA repeatedly chose not to warn the public or issue a recall of Foster Farm’s tainted chicken.

It almost seems as though CAFOs are “too big to bust,” and instead it’s the tiny mom-and-pop artisan food makers that get raided at gunpoint over some potential food safety issue, just so the image of “food safety” can be maintained…